Archive for July, 2011

Early Sat. am —
Just got a nice email from K8TQK with his net report from Wed. night. He had great conditions and a ton of check-ins. They were: KD8OEK, KG4HNI, KB8JNE, W8WG and N8ERC all EM89; VE3LPY and N8TUH EN82; W8AC, K8GDT, KD8JRH and WA8RJF EN91; WB8AUK EN80; KI4ROF EM55 (Off the back of the antenna, no less); K3SZY FN10; AC3L/M FN00; WB4JGG EM75; WA4REE EM65; K4QH EM66; K4XR EM64; WB8ART and W8JAT EM79; KB8TDA EN70; KC8ZJL EN71 and K8OY EM88.
Bob thinks 24 check-ins is the most ever for his 144.250 net.

EARLY HEADS-UP FOR NEXT WED… I will be taking WB9LYH’s 144.240 net. I start out same time as Mark — 0100Z/8pm central. I start out looking to my north, and then go clockwise (meaning NE, E, SE, S, SW, W, NW and back to N at the end) a full 360 over the next 60-90 mins, calling CQ twice every 20-30 degrees.

REMEMBER — ARRL UHF CONTEST IS NEXT WEEKEND — AUG 6/7th. 1800Z to 1800Z. More details available at this post http://kc9bqa.com/?p=5010. Make plans to get on the air. If you have a poor QTH, go roving. The UHF contest is the easiest to rove in, due to the smaller size of respectable yagis on bands like 222, 432, 902, 1296, 2304, 3456, 5760 MHz and 10 GHz.

If you’re new to V/UHF contesting remember my series of articles called VHF Contesting School. The direct link to those is http://kc9bqa.com/?p=4676 I wrote those articles to help any ham feel comfortable with sitting at the mic and calling “CQ Contest”. You are free to share that info with hams everywhere.

Posted in Blog Post | Comments Off on K8TQK Deserves a Net Report of his Own; 24 Check-Ins. Plus ARRL UHF Contest is Next Weekend.

KA0KYZ stepped in when WB9LYH hurt his arm, in the 2nd inning…
OK, Just wanted to make sure you’re really paying attention, LOL.

The 144.240 net was part-WB9LYH and part-KA0KYZ last night. Mark noticed his SWR was very high, and he handed the net off to Terry about halfway thru. Static from thunderstorms was also a big factor. WB9LYH reported little luck to his east and KA0KYZ said his static level to the east and south made those directions unusable. Before Mark pulled the plug, his 9 check-ins were: N9OLT EN64; N9JBW, K9CCL and WA9HIR EN61; N9NDP EN62; W9YZU EM69; KC9TVG EN54; KB9YDE EN52 and WA9BNZ EN40. I believe it’s KC9TVG and KB9YDE’s first time saying hello to our nets. Thanks Jacob and Fred for getting on the air. Welcome.

KA0KYZ took over for WB9LYH on 144.240. Terry reported, “I had a wall of static and crashes from east to almost straight south, so never called that way on either frequency (.240 or .230).” Once Terry got pointed away from t-storms in WI, MI, and IL, he did a lot better.
With the remainder of the 144.240 net, Terry heard from: N0TTW EN32; N0IRS and KD0FEI EM29; N0WJY EN10; WB0YWW, KD0BQK and KG0SJ EN22; KB0UCO EN33; W0MTW EN24; KC0RQH EN35 and WB0ULX EN04. Terry said the .240 net went a bit overtime, but he still got on .230 to call his own net. Again, not even able to call from east to southeast. Wall of static.
I believe it, because we had an amazing lightning storm at my QTH (40 miles north of Milwaukee) from about 9-11pm. I love it that my wife loves weather, but I thought she was taking it a bit too far when after we had a shotgun blast of thunder right outside our front door, she rushed to the window, saying, “Hey, that was close! I bet it was your tower! Does it light up and spark after a good jolt like that??”

Terry’s 144.230 check-ins were: K0SIX and KC0RQH EN35; W0ANH EN47 and KB0LBS in EN36. I’m quite certain that KB0LBS is a new check-in to the net. Welcome Cletus and thanks for keeping EN36 alive.

Bands have been pretty darn good for most of the past few weeks now. Hope many of you have gotten on, called CQ, and enjoyed the DX possibilities.
Our Wed. night nets are ON tomorrow night. Full details are available a bit down this page, on the July 18th post. Go there and you’ll see various ways to get more out of your VHF’ing time, plus improve the overall health of our bands. In fact, I made a number of strong updates last week. If you only visit this website once or twice a month, you can miss a lot. I’d say visiting here for at least a few minutes, once or twice a week is optimum.

A note about tomorrow night’s nets — Thunderstorms may be an issue. The current forecasts for SE MN and most of WI say that thunderstorms are likely tomorrow night. Could be that WB9LYH in EN54 and KA0KYZ in EN33 might not be able to go. So stay flexible, and monitor the ON4KST.com chat. That’s the best place to monitor for real-time updates.
The areas that remain south of tomorrow’s thunderstorms will probably have good band enhancement. This should be the case for much of the next 3-5 days.
K8TQK’s net Wed. night (from EM89je, south-central OH) on 144.250 @0030Z or 8:30pm eastern time could be a great one. Bob’s weather should be perfect and the Hepburn Tropospheric Ducting Forecast maps look very favorable. http://www.dxinfocentre.com/

Posted in Blog Post | Comments Off on Long-Range 2m Nets for Wed. 7/27 are ON. Will K8TQK EM89je Have Great Tropo?

Thanks Mark and Terry for getting the net reports to me via email. Website visitors tell me they appreciate the reports, so thanks for making it convenient for me.
As mentioned in a pre-net update last night, K8TQK was called away and his net was quiet last night. Hope there was activity out of his region, anyway.

WB9LYH said that propagation last night was up and down to his east, and good to the west. His 24 contacts were: N9OLT EN64; N8WNA and VE3LPY EN82; KI8UM EN63; N9NDP EN62; N9JBW and K9CCL EN61; W9GA and KC9GMF EN53; W9YZU EM69; W9BBP and WA9BNZ EN40; K9CT EN50; KA9DVX EN51; KD0FEI and N0IRS EM29; KG0SJ and KD0BQK EN22; W0HXL EN21; N0WJY EN10; K9MU EN44; KC0RQH and K0SIX EN35; W0ANH EN47.

I saw some good news at the ON4KST.com chat site — There were at least 74 USA/VE visitors to the IARU Region 2 Chat for 144-432 MHz in the 24 hours ending 10pm last night. That’s a strong number; hopefully that trend will continue.

I have good news to share from W9FZ Bruce. Right now, he’s planning to go /R Sunday evening. He will be activating difficult WIVUCH counties in far NW WI — Burnett, Washburn and Sawyer counties. We’re going to have a very exciting WIVUCH announcement soon, perhaps this month.

If you have no idea what WIVUCH stands for, you’re not alone. 🙂 It stands for WIsconsin Vhf/Uhf County Hunters award. If you take 5 minutes to visit www.wivuch.com, you’ll get the hang of what we’re trying to do.
Think of it this way: Hams try hard to get the VUCC award from ARRL (at least 100 grids worked on bands like 6 and 2m) Well… why not take that concept down to the individual county level in a given state? That’s what we’ve been doing the past year and a half with WIVUCH. (Pronounced WEE-VOOCH)
All are welcome to work toward the WIVUCH certificate — whether you are a Wisconsin resident or from another state. The base level for getting a nice certificate is 20 counties for fixed stations and activating10 counties as a rover or hilltopper. Again, visit www.wivuch.com for the full scoop.

I’m excited to announce that we have a ham who has worked 69 of Wisconsin’s 72 counties, which is something I never dreamed would happen so soon. The WI counties W9RPM still needs on VHF are Burnett, Green Lake and Kewaunee. W9RPM just worked Racine Co. for #68 yesterday morning, with N9AC on 6m CW.
More about W9RPM’s quest next week…

Below is the QST from W9FZ about the WIVUCH counties he will activate this Sunday:

I’ve decided to do Burnett, Washburn, and Sawyer on Sunday evening.
Three per evening is all about that fits. Not too long of a drive
from county-to-county. I’ll save Douglas, Bayfield, and Ashland for
another evening probably in August or Sept.

I’ll post again later with the expected times. 144.190

These six that I mention will be a CHALLENGE to SE Wisc. But let’s
try, ok? It’s not like a contest where everything is in a hurry. We
can bang away for a while.

Trying to get the net announcement up a little earlier this week. At this time, I believe all our net controls will be on. So you have 3 options, plus other nets out of EN91, EL99 and EM15. I’m confident that Wed. night is the most active one across the Eastern half of the USA on 2m. We encourage all VHF’ers to not only say hello to the nets, but especially to slide down the band a little, and call their own CQ’s. Spread out across the band (144.150-144.220), rotate the beams, see who all is out there. All it takes is a few dozen motivated ops in different grids and you have lots of activity on 2m SSB/CW.

“Our” net controls:
K8TQK has a whopping signal from EM89je, south-central OH. Draw a 500-mile circle around his QTH, and you take in at least two dozen states and Canadian provinces. Bob is on 144.250 every Wed. at 0030Z/8:30pm eastern. He starts out looking north and calls CQ, going in a clockwise circle.
WB9LYH also has a whopping signal from EN54cl, middle of WI. Mark is on 144.240 at 0100Z/8pm central. He starts out looking NE into the U.P. of MI and then goes clockwise a full 360 from there. We are actively looking for more stations to say hello from downstate IL, MO, plus KY, TN, AR and beyond. See if you can hear WB9LYH on tropo, as he looks south about 8:15-8:40pm central time.
KA0KYZ also gets out a long ways from EN33qw, far SE MN. He keeps making improvements and working farther every month. In fact, I was delighted to work him yesterday on 6m for the 1st time. Terry was an easy S3-5 on a 230 mile path to me, and he claimed he was only putting out 25 watts. Hmmm….
But back to his 2m net — Terry’s on 144.230 at 0200Z/9pm central. Because he’s on later, he’s a natural option for working via tropo. Terry starts out looking east, and then goes clockwise from there, a full 360.
Get in the habit of using the ON4KST.com real-time chat for all VHF’ers. Over 2300 hams have now registered. Using this chat is free, easy and fun. If you have internet near your rig, give this a try. It’s open anytime, but is most active in the early mornings, evenings and weekends. Stop by, say hello and most of all, post what you’re hearing and who you’re working on the bands. If everyone would do this, it would increase activity greatly.
The specific room I’m referring to is the IARU Region 2 Chat for 144-432 MHz. Some additional comments about this resource are at this post: http://kc9bqa.com/?p=4411 If you need instructions about how to register, click on this post: http://kc9bqa.com/?p=1072

Up top, I did mention 3 other nets that I know about on Wed. nights. Here are those details:
Wednesday has to be the busiest 2m night in the Eastern half of the USA. There are other nets called from
1) EN91kk, Cleveland OH, K8ZWY starting at 0100Z/9pm eastern on 144.230.
2) EL99ld, Daytona Beach FL, W2RAC/W1LVL, starting at 0000Z on 144.250.
3) EM13, near Ft. Worth, TX, W5FKN, starting at 0200Z on 144.250. Starts south, goes counter-clockwise.

Posted in Blog Post | Comments Off on Far as I Know, All Nets are ON Wed. Night

I know we get new visitors here often. I always hope the visitors are patient, because this is definitely not a bells-and-whistles kind of website. You get the most out of this website if you take time to scroll back thru a variety of posts, and get a feel for how things are (allegedly) organized here.
What you DO get here is consistent, frequent promotion of on-air V/UHF activity. The message here is Get On The Air.

EDIT — October 17, 2013
Before you read any farther down the page, I can save you a bunch of time and steer you to updated info. Instead of going thru this piecemeal info below, make your life easier and simply visit posts I’ve made at kc9bqa.com dated Oct. 13th, Oct. 15th and Oct. 17th, 2013. Those posts have updated net/activity info for all 7 nights of the week. You are free to share this info with hams everywhere. In fact, you are ENCOURAGED to share it. 🙂

Allow me to point out some net and activity options that have slid far off the “front page”.
MONDAYS YOU HAVE 432.100 ACTIVITY COURTESY OF N4PZ, JUST SW OF ROCKFORD, IL, EN52gb. More details are here: http://kc9bqa.com/?p=3855 You also have a friendly net control with great range from EM39, north-central MO. Talking N0PB Phil, who gets on 144.250 from 7:45-9pm, central time. This net has been running for close to 10 years now and gets a lot of check-ins.

TUESDAYS HAVE ACTIVITY ON 2M AND 6M FROM EN72, KALAMAZOO, MI AREA. PLUS A NEWER 2M NET FROM EM66gl on 144.225 at 0100Z, with WU5E as net control. More details here: http://kc9bqa.com/?p=4788
EDIT: Nov. 23, 2011. I never hear anything about the WU5E net which makes me think it’s no longer on the air. If anyone can confirm it IS on, let me know and I’ll give it another plug.
ALSO EVERY 1ST AND 3RD TUESDAY 2M NET ON 144.190 FROM EM26 AT 0100z. Details here: http://kc9bqa.com/?p=4292
EDIT: Jan. 4, 2012. I now see that this net meets *every* Tuesday. This is from K5SW Sam himself, via the VHF reflector (w6yx@stanford.edu)
EDIT Part II — Jan 4, 2012. Last night I got email about a “local” 6m net every Tuesday at 8pm out of Omaha, NE. N0QEI emailed me and said a growing group has been meeting on 50.200 every Tuesday at 8pm for the past 2 months. If I get more details (who net control is, where/when they look certain directions) I will post them here.

I grouped those nets above because most of them are out of normal range for readers in WI. So they make excellent tropo targets or beacons, and of course, we’re in the best time of year for tropo openings. If you’re visiting here from well beyond WI, welcome and help spread the word in your own area about on-air activity. It’s very hard to keep hams interested in the weak-signal side of V/UHF (SSB and CW modes) if they don’t hear signals from time to time.

I am not interested in becoming a nationwide list of all on-air activity. Someone ought to create one; it would be a great idea. But I’m weak with organizing things into neat and tidy databases, so I’m not the right guy.

In addition to these more distant nets, there’s plenty of regular good activity in/near the Midwest/Great Lakes.
The top link in this post covers Mondays.
Wednesdays, I’m always yapping about Wednesdays because that’s our night.
EDIT — Nov. 23, 2011 — In addition to our 144.240 (WB9LYH EN54cl @7pm Central) and 144.250 (K8TQK EM89je @8:30pm Eastern) nets, here are other options on Wednesday:
1) EN91kk, Cleveland OH, K8ZWY starting at 0100Z/9pm eastern on 144.230.
2) EL99ld, Daytona Beach FL, W2RAC/W1LVL, starting at 0000Z on 144.250.
3) EM13, near Ft. Worth, TX, W5FKN, starting at 0200Z on 144.250. Starts south, goes counter-clockwise.
4) In early Nov. 2011, I learned about a net out of EN93, about an hour west of Toronto. I’m going off a dim memory of what was told to me in the ON4KST.com chat. It’s a newer net, and I think it’s on 144.210. If I hear the details again, I’ll firm them up here.

Thursdays, I promote often, but here’s the link in case you don’t have it already: http://kc9bqa.com/?p=4970
Fridays and Saturdays feature 2m and 6m activity out of OH: http://kc9bqa.com/?p=3916
EDIT — Feb. 2, 2012 — The 50.170 6m Net called by KD8IME in EN71 every Saturday now starts at 7pm eastern, not 8pm.
Sunday evenings are active on multiple bands, from MN and MI: http://kc9bqa.com/?p=4774

If I’m missing something in the Midwest that is active, welcomes everyone and is looking for more than the same 4 or 5 check-ins every week, by all means let me know. Talking wide-range, SSB/CW nets or activities on 6m, 2m, 222, 432.

FINALLY — WANT EVERYONE TO KNOW ABOUT THE SINGLE-MOST EXCITING ACTIVITY, 7 MORNINGS PER WEEK, ON 144.205 (it’s actually expanding to other nearby frequencies now, as of Dec. 2011).

EDIT — EDIT — EDIT October, 2013
I should have updated this long ago. KA1ZE has been off with the 144.205 MorningGroup for months now. While there is still some 144.205 activity, it’s not nearly what it used to be. That’s too bad, because it shouldn’t take someone like KA1ZE to “make things happen”. Kudos to the guys out east who still get on 144.205 in the mornings. KA1ZE has hinted at coming back for the fall/winter of 2013-14. I’d keep an eye on www.ka1ze.com and see if anything happens.

This is the 144.205 (and nearby) morning group, hosted by KA1ZE/3 and made better with a group of dozens, stretching all across the Eastern USA.
This activity group is so good, you have to read more about it in a separate post — http://kc9bqa.com/?p=5505 That post has everything you need to know. Get familiar with the .205 morning group and get involved. They’re a friendly group that is always looking to expand their circle of activity.
If you have questions, or want to observe what they do, follow them in the on4kst.com chat room. They use the IARU Region 2 chat for 144-432 MHz every single morning, from about 1200-1230Z for at least the next hour or two, sometimes longer. You could ask questions of them directly in the chat, or ask one of their stations to turn your way to pick you up. That’s how they keep expanding the activity, by being friendly and available.
Or if you are on Twitter, then go to “205MorningGroup”.

Posted in Blog Post | Comments Off on COMPREHENSIVE Listing of Weekly Nets in a Wide Area Surrounding WI.

Next contest is the ARRL August UHF on Aug 6-7th. 24 hours, from 1800Z Sat. until 1800Z Sun. All bands from 222 and 432 MHz on up thru the microwaves and beyond. No 6 or 2m; this is the UHF contest. Who’s going out roving for this one?
Here’s the ARRL webpage: http://www.arrl.org/august-uhf. Here’s a post or two I’ve made about the UHF contest: http://kc9bqa.com/?p=4863 (UHF chit chat is in the middle). Also visit this post if you care to http://kc9bqa.com/?p=4959.

If you need more info about V/UHF contesting, please visit my series of articles called VHF Contesting School. The direct link to everything is here: http://kc9bqa.com/?p=4676 You are welcome to share this info with hams everywhere.

If we have tropo anything close to what we had this weekend, it will be a great UHF contest. Often times, tropo is better, db for db on the higher bands. Even if all you have is 70cm, make plans to get on/near 432.100 USB and make some calls. If all you have is 446.00 FM, give it a try. 90% of the activity is on the SSB side, using horizontally polarized yagis, though. One place where an FM’er should be able to make some contacts is on 223.500 MHz FM. Unfortunately, SSB gear for 222 is hard to come by. Nobody makes anything commercially available in the US. You have to use a transverter (Google is your friend) or you can find an old Yaesu FT-726 or 736R. Make sure the one you’re interested in has the 222 band module already in it.
My fingers are crossed that 222, 432, 902 and 1296 are all working FB in my shack out in the shed. I know everything’s rotating properly now and that’s a huge improvement from the past year.

Well, I didn’t end up spending nearly as much time in the shack for this contest as I had hoped. I was on from basically 7:30am-noon on Sunday. With that limited time, I wanted to get a sense of how the contest was for others. I wasn’t on to make a big score or to work everyone in a 360 — just not enough time. I tend to be all-or-nothing about contests. If I’m on; I’m on big-time. If something goes wrong, or gets in the way, then I get cranky and it loses its appeal.
I was glad everything’s working fine on 6m and 2m. In fact, with many stations in normal “groundwave” range (roughly 150-300 miles with yagis on both ends), their 6m signals were a little louder than their 2m ones. Not sure if that was part of the enhancement, or if my 2m system is slipping, or just what.

Other things I heard (or have read via email)…
1) Virtually no E skip on 6m on Saturday. Decent openings on 6m on Sunday. I was working New England and then the Mid-Atlantic.
Too bad the bulk of the Es wasn’t on Saturday — it would have captured more ops’ attention, overall. There’s definitely a tendency for casual operators to tune in for a time and if they don’t hear any fireworks, they can lose interest.
2) There was good tropo to the west of WI on Sat. night and at least Sunday morning. In some places, the opening is still going. NLRS guys talking this morning about hearing beacons in ND and VE-4-land that they don’t hear often. I was talking up potential band enhancement as far back as July 13th, near the bottom of this post: http://kc9bqa.com/?p=4979 Hepburn Tropo Forecast Maps have looked enticing for 6-7 days now. http://www.dxinfocentre.com/
3) Many guys I talked to Sunday morning said this was the best activity they’d ever heard from NE and IA. One said he worked more NE stations than he did EN34 (metro Minneapolis/St. Paul). I tip my hat to everyone who is making things happen in NE and IA.
4) W9RM in EN52 said that as of late Saturday morning, he had worked 56 different grids on 2m. Jay has a very nice station and many years of experience, but that sounded like a lot of grids to me. His opinion was that overall activity levels were very good, which is good news. Everything I do with the emails, this website, the V/UHF promotion… is to improve activity levels on the air.
5) I wilted in the heat of my shed on Sunday afternoon. That was weird; I typically have enjoyed hot weather thru the years. Suppose this is another sign of aging, gosh dangit. In the 2006 CQ WW VHF, it was well above 90 and humid, and I was on for all 27 hours, plus we went to a fun party (no air conditioning either) after the contest was done. I’d hate to think I’ve slipped that much, as I cruise thru my 40’s!

My score was about 5,300, if I recall correctly. Too lazy to power up the laptop and check right now. I saw where K2DRH made a really nice score — 169,242. Bob had 500 Q’s across 140 grids on 50 MHz , and 171 Q’s across 61 grids on 144 MHz.:

Before we get to the net reports, PLEASE REMEMBER TWO OTHER THINGS:
1) CQ WW VHF Contest — 6m and 2m — is THIS WEEKEND. Scroll down a few posts for full info.
2) W9FZ/R will be ACTIVATING WIVUCH COUNTIES IN FAR N WI FRIDAY NIGHT.

Sorry for the caps, now on to the net reports.
K8TQK tied into some DX last night. Worked the FN, FM, EM and EN fields. His highlights last night would have to be a pair of contacts in the 650 mile range, with WB0YWW EN22 and K0SIX EN35.
K8TQK’s 18 check-ins were: W8JAT and WB8TDA EN70; WB8AUK EN80; KB8NOD EM79; KC8YCO and W8WG EM89; KC8ZJL EN71; W2AUD FN13; W8AC EN91; AC3L FN00; W3BFC FM18; W2KV FN20; KI4ROF EM55; WB0YWW EN22; NT9E EN52; KR8T and W8CJS EN72 and just after his net, Bob worked K0SIX an hour north of Minneapolis/St. Paul, EN35. The contact to EN22 was 622 miles and to EN35 687 miles.

Turns out KA0KYZ was home last night at net time. He got on 144.230 at his usual time of 0200Z/9pm central and heard from: KR8T EN72; WB0YWW, KG0SJ and KD0BQK EN22; WV9E EN43; KB9WZJ EM69; KB0UCO EN33; W0HXL and W0FLS EN21; N0WJY EN10; KC0YBM EN35; WB0ULX EN04, eastern SD; KC0YBM and K0SIX EN35. Great to see a net with many IA, NE and SD station. I think W0FLS is a new call to the net list — welcome — and enjoy the activity.
KA0KYZ said that he, KB9WZJ and K8TQK were ragchewing until 0400Z, at least. I imagine conditions just kept getting better. On V/UHF, it often pays to be a night owl. Or an early bird.